Did The Crusader Bohemond Escape The Middle East By Pretending To Be A Corpse? The Byzantine Emperor’s Daughter Believed He Did

 (Bohemond of Antioch by Merry-Joseph Blondel  (1781–1853), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

When Pope Urban II announced the First Crusade in 1095, the Norman noble, Bohemond (1050/58-1109 CE), quickly grasped at the opportunity. Of all of the crusader lords that partook in the armed pilgrimage, his motives are among the clearest. As his half-brother seized the great majority of the family’s lands and assets, Bohemond saw the crusades as an unequalled opportunity to amass land, gold and glory. Plus, the spiritual rewards and absolution of sins promised by the pope were also gladly welcomed.

The crusader coalition made their way to the Holy Lands by a route through the Byzantine Empire, which controlled most of the Balkans and much of western Anatolia at that time. To gain safe passage through the Byzantine territory, the crusaders made a costly deal with the emperor, Alexios I Komnenos—the crusaders swore that they would hand over all the lands to the emperor that they captured which were former imperial provinces. Unfortunately for the crusaders, the Byzantine Empire was the surviving remnant of the Roman Empire, which meant that Emperor Alexios claimed as his own almost everything that was captured during the First Crusade.

Continue reading about the interesting rumors about Bohemond's escape from the Middle East after he captured Antioch during the First Crusade, HERE.

New Biography: The Talented Princess Of The Byzantine Empire And Her Impressive Book Of History

(Portrait of the Princess Anna Komnene, unknown artist or date, via Ancient Origins and Pinterest)

Anna Komnene (1083-1153 CE) was an extraordinary woman. She was an erudite scholar of multiple intellectual fields and a cunning political schemer who is believed to have attempted to climb to ultimate power in the Byzantine Empire. Yet, her greatest claim to fame resulted from her ambitious history, The Alexiad, which detailed the military and diplomatic accomplishments of her father, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 1081-1118 CE.

Continue reading about the life of the astute princess of the Byzantine Empire, ANna Komnene, HERE.

New Article: There Was An Incredible Amount Of Military Technological Advancement In the Decades Leading Up To World War I

(75mm pack howitzer M1920, c. 1921 [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

By the end of the 19th century, into the early 20th century, the weapons of warfare were evolving at an alarming rate. Guns, explosives and machines were becoming increasingly more lightweight, powerful and exponentially more deadly. The tragedy of the situation was that very few people knew just how devastating many of these new weapons would be when a major war broke out. True, there were many wars in the years before World War One— such as the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the Boer Wars (1880-1881 and 1889-1902), the Spanish-American War (1898), and the Ruso-Japanese War (1904-1905). Yet, in these wars, countries often remained doubtful about the new weaponry in their arsenals, and were still in a phase of experimentation and implementation. By the start of WWI in 1914, however, most major powers had adopted the latest guns, artillery, explosives, ships and planes, resulting in a Great War the likes of which the world had never before seen.

Continue reading some of the devastating military inventions that came about in the decades prior to WWI, HERE.

New Biography: The Action-Packed Life Of Japan’s Greatest Duelist, Miyamoto Musashi

Birth of a Legend

 (Miyamoto Musashi fighting Tsukahara Bokuden, painted by Yoshitoshi  (1839–1892), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Around 1584 CE, a boy was born into the Hirata family of samurai in the village of Miyamoto, located in the Harima Province of Japan. The boy’s father, Miyamoto Munisai (or Shinmen Munisai), was considered to be one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen, and he ran the village’s local dojo. With such a skilled parent, many would have expected that the boy would grow to be skilled with a sword. Yet, few could have predicted the unprecedented martial prowess that the newborn child would soon show the world. The boy’s name was Miyamoto Musashi, and he would later claim to have fought in over sixty duels, many of which ended in the death of his opponents.

Although Musashi is best remembered for being the undefeated “Alexander the Great” of dueling, he was also a bit of a renaissance man. Besides being a duelist, he joined the military and fought in around six battles. He also was an artist who painted, sculpted and carved. As another occupation, he became a foreman or supervisor and worked in construction. Yet, his greatest contribution to his legacy was his writing career.

When he was around twenty-two (perhaps, 1606 CE) he produced his Writings of the Sword Technique of the Enmei Ryu (Enmei Ryu Kenpo Sho), which was his first known written work on swordsmanship. In addition to this, near the end of his life, he also wrote the Thirty-five Instructions on Strategy (Hyoho Sanju Go). All his earlier writing, however, were surpassed by the book he wrote in the years preceding his death in 1645—The Book of Five Rings, or Go Rin no Sho.

Nevertheless, Musashi’s careers in literature and construction are not why most readers are here, reading this article. No, the most interesting and dramatic events in Miyamoto Musashi’s life came about because of the decades he spent wandering Japan as a traveling duelist.

Continue reading about the unbelievable life of Miyamoto Musashi, HERE.

(New Article) Virgil's Underworld: A Land Of Death...And Reincarnation

  (Dante and Virgil in Hell, by Crescenzio Onofri  (–1714) and Livio Mehus  (1630–1691), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

In The Aeneid, an epic poem written by the Roman poet, Virgil (70-19 BCE), the main character of the story (Aeneas) traveled into the underworld to meet his father. The scenes that Virgil painted about the realm of the dead in book six of his masterpiece are likely some of the most vivid and elaborate illustrations of the ancient Greco-Roman underworld.

Virgil’s description of the underworld was so compelling that it undoubtedly served as an inspiration for Dante Alighieri’s conception of Hell in his famous work, The Divine Comedy. Despite Virgil’s disquieting portrayal of the gloomy, depressing and gruesome side of the underworld, he also described a highly interesting system of reincarnation that occurred in the Fields of Elysium. Although Virgil was not the only person from ancient Greece and Rome to envision reincarnation—Pythagoras and his followers also believed in rebirth—it is, nonetheless very interesting to read about souls in Greco-Roman mythology participating in a system of reincarnation similar to what can be found in Buddhism and Hinduism. 

Journeying to the Underworld

  (Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl, by François Perrier  (1594–1649), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Aeneas’ adventure to the underworld began when he decided to break into the realm of the dead to speak with his father. He sought out a renowned Sibyl in Cumae to teach him how a living man could enter the realm of the dead. She directed him to a Stygian marsh, where he needed to obtain a golden bough that would be vital to them during their journey into the depths of the underworld.

Continue reading about Aeneas' journey into the land of the dead, where souls were being reborn into the world, HERE.